Emi is Three Months Old!!!

Wow!  It's hard to believe!  My little girl is growing up so fast.  She is quite amazing.  Now she is smiling all the time.  She is a happy baby.  She loves her mommy.  She is getting attached to me and getting harder and harder to pass her to someone else.  She is very certain of what she wants and doesn't want.  She is very opinionated.  I love that.  She is a babble box.  She talks all the time.  She sings.  Yes, I'm not kidding she sings along to Jesus Loves Me.  She is grasping, pinching, scratching, and pulling out hair.  Yes, I love my three month old baby.  She is starting to drool so I'm afraid baby teeth are right around the corner.  She is very active.  She is rubbing out the hair on her head in spite of the fact that she is held 90 percent of the time.  She can roll over.  I'm so proud of how far she has come in just three short months.  Here are the things I still see from her drug exposure.  She has to be picked up slowly or it gets her out of her skin.  She still startles easily.  If you walk into her line of vision she will often jump.  She is probably too mobile at this point.  She is moving her arms and legs almost constantly while awake as well as moving her lips.  I'm not kidding she talks all the time.  She is a complete joy.  Our whole family loves her immeasurable.  We look forward to watching her life unfold before our eyes as she journeys to complete wholeness.  Emi you are amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AWWWWWE so amazing, so beautiful, so blessed, so honored......... EMI

Today My Lawyers Met

So Much More to Say...............

Beautiful Sanders Girls

Emi Observations at 11 weeks

Emi is 11 weeks old! Wow it's hard to believe. She has come so far from that little tiny five pound preemie!  Her personality has blossomed.  She is going to be quite strong willed and very opinionated.  But so are all my girls.  She has no noticeable issues.  When I take her to the doctor they find her meeting her milestones and exceeding her  counterparts on growth.  This is all good news to me.  Getting from there to here has not been easy.   It has been a 24 hour a day challenge.  I wouldn't trade a second of the time I have had with this child.  She is amazing.  We click.  When I say that I mean we know what the other is thinking without words exchanged.  Jeff calls me the 'baby whisperer' lol.  It is understandable since we have in inseparable now for nearly 12 weeks.  I am still holding her and monitoring her sleep at night but during the day I leave her sleeping for a few minutes at a time while I do chores around the house.  I still see residual issues with the drug exposure.  Nothing anyone else would see but I know her both inside and out.  She has little panic attacks.  Her heart races and she starts breathing almost in a hyperventilating type to state.  I try to take her to our room to sleep but she will refuse to go to sleep until I take her back to her familiar area ( the couch) and then she will be asleep in less than 30 seconds.  If she gets upset (for instance in the car seat and I can't get to her immediately) she will panic and scream like an animal if I can't get to her in time.   She is developing an attachment to me that excludes anyone else being able to console her.  She is still hypersensitive but that is getting less all the time.  I know she is healing from the first eight months of her life.  I expect she will be completely whole and completely sound in all areas.  I will write a book for others someday if time proves she is healed.  I think I know how to reach these drug exposed children.  At least I knew how to reach Emi and I believe others can be helped as well.  Praying daily for the future of this child of God.  

I LOVE this baby!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is the Family Book I Did The Night After Earlene Told Me About The Possibility Of Adoption

OUR FAMILY BOOK MADE EXCLUSIVELY FOR

S

S, Hello I hope you are doing well.  Let me introduce myself and my family.  I am Lisa.  I am first of all a wife to Jeff my high school sweetheart.  We have been happily married 23 years.  We dated in high school, finished college and then got married.  He has a finance degree and I have an elementary teaching degree.  Jeff worked for a cattle company for 10 years before buying his own business that we now run together.  I taught second grade for 5 years and then chose to stay home and raise our three children as a stay at home mom.  I also later taught two years of preschool and have done many summer church programs with children.  We have been blessed with three biological children and two adopted children from Guatemala.  We have owned our own business for 14 years.  During this time we have been blessed to be able to add to our family through adoption.  In 2006 we traveled to Guatemala six times to eventually bring home our precious angels.  They have been a blessing not only to my husband and I but also to our three older children and my parents who live next door to us.  We feel that as much love as we can give we can share that with another child.  My little five year old and four year old have been praying for a baby sister every night for over two months.  I believe they can understand the blessing of another child in the family much like my older children did when we brought them home from Guatemala.

    I grew up on a farm with three brothers.  We raised cattle, cotton and wheat.  My dad was a school principal and my mother was a special education teacher.  In the summers I hoed cotton with my brothers.  For fun we rode horses or motorcycles.   I was very active in school and have enjoyed watching my children become very involved in school activities as well.

   Jeff grew up on a farm as well.  He lived near his grandparents and had a close relationship with his grandfather.  He enjoyed all sports.  His favorite was football, but he also played baseball and basketball.  He had a close family and many cousins lived nearby.

We live in the home my grandmother and grandfather built in 1935.  Of course we have added on to accommodate our growing family.  It is on the farm my family homesteaded.  It is a wonderful farm with many acres to run and explore on.  My older children know every inch of the farm and spent many hours discovering nature and spending time outdoors.  They rode horses, camped out under the stars and enjoyed many cookouts.

In 2010 we bought another house in the city.  This was to make better school choices for our children.  Now we casually go back and forth to both homes and enjoy the best of both worlds.  The country offers quiet and calm while the city offers entertainment and easy access.  Having two homes has not been near the struggle one would imagine.  We spend most weekends on the farm and stay in the city during the week for school.

I would describe our family as fun and adventurous.  We all enjoy the lake and love to ski.  We enjoy the mountains where we all snow ski.  My 16 year old loves to cliff jump.  We live very close to a river on our farm and love spending time there with four wheelers.  We have cattle on our farms and enjoy checking them every time we get a chance.  We have a pool in our backyard but have chosen to keep it closed until the little ones are good swimmers.  It is not open this year.  We like to be spontaneous.  When the weather got to 110 degrees this summer we all got up one morning and decided to head for higher ground.  We ended up at Breckenridge, CO where the weather was 70 degrees.  It was a welcome break from the heat!  I believe we work hard, but play harder.

Happy faces speak volumes about a family.  Our family believes in being courteous and polite.  We love to wrestle and joke with one another.  We are one of the few families today that still sits down to home cooked meals in the evenings and discuss the day together. 

My oldest son is 23.  He is my pride and joy.  He is studying in his senior year at a major university where he will graduate in the top 7% of his class with a chemical engineering degree.  He played football in high school, and was selected to play in the Senior Bowl.  He also played basketball and was the class president for six years.  He was an honor student.

My oldest daughter is 18 and she will enter college this fall.  Her plans are to pursue a history/philosophy major and obtain a law degree.  She loves to read, spend time outdoors, and help others.  She has a special place in her heart for adoption.  She graduated with top honors.  She has been active in dance, cheerleading and softball.  She has won many beauty pageants and that will pay her way through college.

My next son is 16.  He will be a sophomore in high school.   He just got his driver’s license and had his first fender bender! He is on the wrestling team at his school. He also has played football.  Being the baby of the family for 11 years he still enjoys being mommy’s little boy.  He enjoys spending time with his friends.  He is also an honor student.

My little daughter is five.  She will be in kindergarten this year.  She is looking forward to going.  She is a perfectionist who takes her time with her work.  She is a very good artist.  She plays t-ball and she has been taking dance for two years.

My little son is four.  He went to the three year old school program last year and did very well.  He is compassionate.  He tells me at least 20 times a day that he loves me from infinity and beyond!  He’s is a happy and fun boy with enormous potential.  He is looking forward to taking wrestling this fall so he can emulate his big brother.

We now feel there is yet another child to join our family…………………..

We have been considering adoption again for several months.  Ultimately we feel that every child deserves a loving and nurturing home.  As long as God provides we feel a need to make that happen.  We feel we have adequate space to provide a loving and safe home.  We have the resources and the time to care for another child.  I have hired a secretary and have tried to free more time to allow for another child to be a part of our family.  We enjoy the large laughter that a big family brings to the table in the evenings and would love to set a place for yet another little angel.  I hope you will give us consideration in your decision.  God Bless you!

Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear. Isaiah 59:1